Liberal (as in liberal philosophy) policies such as family planning and feminism, universal health care, support of and respect for scientific research, universal and high quality education, and the rejection — even within a relatively conservative society — of conservative beliefs as well as personal and institutional level selfish behaivor should be among the primary values of any country that wishes to succeed in the basic objectives of the pursuit of happiness and freedom. According to this graph:

But this graph and its presentation does have some problems. So, instead of this Sunday’s installment of “This Photograph Needs a Caption” let’s play “This Graph (produced using Gapcast Technology) Needs a Close Look.”

What is wrong with this graph? What is right about this graph? What do we learn politically and socially? What are the direct and indirect political messages and meanings?

Get your coffee, sit down and relax, and watch. You may want to take notes.

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Comments

I really enjoyed his enthusiastic delivery. I don’t think there as anything wrong with the graph itself. For a long and healthy life have yourself born into a rich and technologically advanced country.

wow. Sorry, not smart. He’s comparing Sweden in history to modern countries. Compared to other countries, Sweden may well have been ahead… one thing it doesn’t take into account is inflation. 200 years ago that was a heck of a lot more money than it is today!

The other thing I really HATE about graphs like this in general is that the GNP is so often the measure of a country’s wealth, and how well off the population is. Unfortunately, you can have a high GNP and large populations in poverty if there is a huge disparity between the social-economic classes.

I found it really difficult to be interested in the discussion when it’s framed so poorly.

I’m curious why life expectancy was so low in 1709. I’m gathering from the video that the thesis is that things like infant morality and death by childbirth were higher than average, and that better health care for women directly raises life expectancy and indirectly leads to greater average wealth. Or at least something like that–that’s how I would frame it.

Sweden does have respect for scientific research but unfortunately very little governmental support. The way most research groups are structured at the Karolinska is to have a PI and then simply one or two PhD students who do the benchwork, rather than qualified scientists. The reason for this is that the Karolinska, faced with an EU law designed to formalize the working conditions of those on short term contracts decided the easiest thing to do would be to ban long term contracts for post-docs (the exact opposite intention of the EU law, but what the hell, they’re only scientists, right?).
The result is a huge surplus of postdocs with little or no job prospects. They’re very well educated, mind, the PhD program is one of the best in the world.

Kate: “Sorry, not smart. He’s comparing Sweden in history to modern countries. Compared to other countries, Sweden may well have been ahead… one thing it doesn’t take into account is inflation. 200 years ago that was a heck of a lot more money than it is today!”

What makes you think it doesn’t take into account inflation?

I doubt he and the team he works(ed?) with to created these graphs would make such an elementary mistake as to forget that the value of money changes. But maybe that’s just me being unusually nationalistic 😛

About this blog

The science is mostly climate change, life science, evolution, and science education. The science policy and politics is mostly about climate change and the evolution-creationism false controversy. The technology is mostly about Linux, regular normal person computer use, kids programming, and now and then, household items.

As an Anthropologist and Africanist, I often write about those topics as well.

Usually, I write about one or two topics for a while then shift to something different. This is not systematic, and has to do with context and external forces such as: Is this a presidential election year? Are we having an El Nino? Is there a fight going on somewhere about teaching creationism in a public school? Did I just get a cool new robot toy? Like that.

So, if you don't find the most recent few posts interesting, have a look at the topics below. But, of course, chances are you got here with a Google search and you'll never read this "about" thing.